


Out of Nothing

by HapaxLegomenon



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Growing Up, POV Keith (Voltron), Team as Family, Zine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 13:02:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17060276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HapaxLegomenon/pseuds/HapaxLegomenon
Summary: Five times Keith thought about the meaning of family, and one time he realized he already had it.





	Out of Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was written post-season 5, so canon has since Jossed some plot points, but hopefully it'll still be a fun read. Enjoy.

_I._

 

There were a lot of things that Keith didn’t have growing up. He never had notes in his lunch box, or new clothes, or the cool toys, but that was fine—he didn’t really want them, anyway. Except for the shiny red remote-controlled car that Jamal brought to school one day. He wanted that; it was fast.

“You wanna try?” Jamal asked, catching Keith watching the car with single-minded intensity. He held out the control pad, head cocked slightly to the side and a welcoming smile stretching his cheeks.

Keith looked to one side, then the other, then pointed at himself. “Me?” There was nobody else there, but the other kids didn’t like to play with Keith very much. That was okay, though; he didn’t always like to play with them, either.

Jamal nodded. “Yeah! It’s fun. You like cars, right?”

Keith didn’t know how to answer that question, so he stayed silent. The control pad was warm from Jamal’s hands, and the car was easy to drive. Keith steered it up and down the sidewalk, looping around cracks and hopscotch squares. Jamal cheered, but Keith barely heard him. The car was fast, and he felt himself start to smile, pushing it to go faster and faster and faster. It twisted between their feet like a cat and rocketed away. Keith felt the vibration of the tinny motor in his soul.

“Wow,” Jamal said, impressed, as Keith made the car go in a figure-eight. “You’re good at that. Hey, you should get one, too! Then we can race.”

The car was cherry-red, a bright spot in the beige-brown-orange of the dry desert soil, and Keith couldn’t drag his eyes away from it. He wanted it. He _wanted_ that car, like a hollowness inside him that needed to be filled. “Where did you get it from?” he asked, voice quiet.

Jamal shrugged. “My mom,” he answered brightly.

Keith blinked and saw the car on the back of his eyelids.

“You should get your mom to get you one!”

“I don’t have a mom.” When he made the car turn in a circle, the sunlight gleamed white off of the side, little sparks of brightness like fireworks on the inside of his eyelids.

“Oh. What about your dad?”

Another circle, tighter this time. A flash of a firework, and another circle.

The car caught a pebble under its tire and flipped onto its side in the grass. The wheels spun, loud and futile, and Keith clenched his teeth. “He can’t.”

Jamal bent to pick up the car, inspecting it for scratches. “How come?” he asked with bald innocence.

“He’s gone.”

“Where?”

“He's  _gone,"_  Keith snapped. His knuckles were white, and he gripped the control pad so hard that he was scared it would break. Like the pen, last night, that had exploded on his homework. Someone would yell if he broke the control pad. People always yelled when he broke things.

“Oh,” Jamal said. He put the car back on the ground and stood still, like he was waiting. Waiting for Keith to break it, maybe. “Who do you live with then? Your grandma? My cousin Marcus lives with my Grandma because his dad is gone, too. Momma says that family is s’posed to take care of each other but Marcus’s dad didn’t want to be a family, so that’s why he doesn’t live there. Are you gonna go again? Make it do that figure-eight again.”

It was hard to control the car when Keith squeezed the controller too tightly, so he had to make his fingers relax. The toy zipped back to life, proclaiming its mastery over this little corner of pavement in figure-eights and clover shapes.

“Maureen,” Keith said.

Jamal’s eyebrows drew together. “Who’s Maureen? Watch out for the rock,” he added, pointing.

The rock was easy to avoid, but Keith waited until the last second, then made the car swerve. It tilted up on two wheels before landing back down and Jamal whooped in victory. “I live with Maureen,” Keith said, as the car sped away from them.

“Oh. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

Keith shook his head.

“Wow, lucky. I have two big sisters _and_ a little brother and they’re so annoying. I wish I didn’t have them. Can I have it back?” He held his hand out, and Keith passed the control pad wordlessly, but his stomach lurched at losing the car. Jamal pressed a button and the car immediately turned off of the sidewalk and got stuck in the grass, wheels spinning uselessly. “Oops,” he said, sheepish.

Keith was better at driving the car. He wished for it, red and fast and _his_ , but it wasn’t. It wouldn’t be. There were a lot of things that the other kids had that Keith didn’t, like toy cars and families. It didn’t occur to him, then, to wonder why. It just was.

 

_II._

 

“No, no, that’s the centripetal force, not the centrifugal force. Centripetal force is directed inward, remember? Like this,” Shirogane said, pointing at a diagram in Keith’s notes.

Keith growled under his breath as he erased the equation. He pressed the pencil tip into the paper to rewrite it, then jumped when the pencil snapped under his hand. “Dammit,” he hissed, shaking out his stiff fingers. “Uh, I mean. Sorry. Sir.”

Shirogane had a penetrating gaze. Keith fought the urge to stare back, instead keeping his eyes squarely on his paper. Challenging authority never worked out, but it was hard not to do it anyway. He clenched his jaw and waited for the reprimand that was sure to come, mentally cursing himself.

He’d worked _so hard_ to get into the Garrison. There was no way he was going to screw this up. It was bad enough that Iverson already didn’t like him, that he’d been assigned a ‘mentor’ to help with his ‘discipline issues.' Shirogane was bound to be just as bad as the rest, but Keith was going to have to grit his teeth and deal with it. This was the price of getting to fly, after all, and Keith wanted nothing more in life than to fly.

“Let’s take a break,” Shirogane said.

Keith blinked. “Sir?”

“You can call me Shiro,” he replied, “‘Sir’ makes me feel like Iverson.” Shiro rolled his eyes, then reached to take the broken pencil from Keith. “You’re getting frustrated, right? So let’s try something else.” Shiro stood, gesturing for Keith to pack up his books and follow him out of the library.

Keith jogged after him, curious despite himself. “Where are we going?”

Shiro reached into his pocket and drew out a passcard. “Sim lab. I have an idea.” He grinned, and this time, Keith grinned back. By far, the simulations were his favourite part of his classes. Flying came naturally to him, and it was just _fun._  He could do without having to deal with the other students, but his therapists had always made a point of needing to compromise. So it was a compromise.

“Alright,” Shiro said, when the sim was powered on and they were strapped into their seats, Keith in the pilot’s chair and Shiro at the communications console. “Centripetal force. How tight can you make this thing spin?”

Keith bared his teeth in a wide smile and cranked the controls.

*

Shiro blocked Keith’s strike with infuriating ease, turning the momentum back against him and sending Keith sprawling to the mat. With a growl, Keith rolled to his feet and threw himself at Shiro again, with the same result. This time, though, Shiro grabbed Keith’s arm and twisted it back, flipping Keith onto his stomach and pinning him down. Keith tried to buck him off, but Shiro only tightened his grip and waited.

“You’re sloppy,” Shiro said. “C’mon, Keith, we both know that you can do better than this. Calm down and focus.” It wasn’t said like an accusation, but Keith burned with embarrassed frustration. It got tangled up in the bubbling mess of emotion already stewing in his gut, until all he wanted to do was hit something. Or steal a speeder bike and ride off into the desert. Or... something.

“Again,” he panted into the mat. Above him, Shiro sighed, but released his arm and they got to their feet. This time, Keith didn’t manage more than one swing before Shiro had him on the ground again, kneeling on his chest.

“Seriously, Keith,” he said. “What’s going on today? This isn’t like you.”

Keith grunted and tried to get his knees up to shove them into Shiro’s gut, but Shiro anticipated the move and twisted, leaning his weight back so that Keith couldn’t get enough leverage. Sloppy and unfocused? That was exactly like him, Keith thought. Aggressive and contrary and impulsive and destined for mediocrity at best. That’s what everyone always said about him. Teachers, social workers, foster families. Everyone except Shiro.

He thrashed again, only managing to wrench his shoulder against Shiro’s iron hold, and he didn’t stop fighting even when a sharp pain bloomed in the joint. His own breath was loud in his ears, harsh and fast.

“Okay, _stop._ ” Shiro’s hard voice cut through, shocking Keith into obeying. He went limp, eyes wide. It wasn’t as if Keith was unfamiliar with the militant structure of authority at the Garrison, nor that he hadn’t heard Shiro’s command voice before. He just wasn’t used to Shiro speaking to him that way. The surprise must have shown on his face, because Shiro’s own expression twisted into something vaguely guilty, before shifting back into the impartial, unreadable expression he wore during class evaluations. Or whenever he was trying to hide his own feelings. Keith hated it.

Shiro released him, and Keith sat up, glowering at his bare feet. He was aware that he was regressing, falling back into the pattern of being angry and unresponsive, but it didn’t feel like he could do anything about it. He stared at his toes and focused on his breathing.

“We’re done here,” Shiro said, still in his teacher’s tone, and Keith bit down on the insides of his cheeks to keep from saying something stupid, something poisonous and harmful that he didn’t mean and would regret later. Part of him wanted to do it, to push at Shiro until whatever good relationship they had was broken beyond repair, because what did it matter, anyway, when Shiro was leaving?

Like everyone else.

Keith knew better. Stupid. He shouldn’t have let himself get attached.

He didn’t look up as Shiro stood over him, waiting for something. It was irrational, completely, and Keith knew it. He was in a space exploration program, training to be a pilot. Shiro was a pilot already. Obviously, he was going to go on a long-term space mission at some point. The feelings of betrayal and abandonment were unhelpful and illogical, but that didn’t stop Keith from having them. It did make him feel guilty, and guilt made him angry, and… here they were.

Shiro was leaving tomorrow. Keith half-expected him to turn and leave right now, goodbyes be damned, because that’s probably what he deserved anyway.

Shiro crouched and put a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Keith,” he said, in his regular, unguarded voice, and then paused. “Look, Keith. I want to talk to you about something. Go get cleaned up and meet me at the launch site gates, okay?”

He squeezed, and Keith winced at the pressure on his bruised shoulder. Immediately, Shiro let go, but Keith couldn’t help but feel it as a loss.

“Sure,” Keith said, “I’ll be there.”

*

The Hermes was a huge shuttle, fitted with the most cutting-edge in space travel technology. It had to be, if it was going to carry Shiro and his crew all the way to Pluto and back. Keith didn’t have permission to enter the launch site unattended, so he waited for Shiro behind the chain-link fence, thinking.

“She’s a nice ship,” Shiro said from behind him, voice reverent.

“Yeah,” Keith agreed softly.

“Let’s go take a look.”

Keith followed behind Shiro, nodding and making the appropriate noises as Shiro pointed out the features of the shuttle. He appreciated the up-close view—it _was_ a beautiful spacecraft, and he would love to get his hands on the controls—but he could tell that Shiro was stalling. After all this time, Keith knew Shiro well enough to see that he was nervous.

“What’s wrong?” he asked bluntly, interrupting Shiro’s poetic waxing about the smoothness of fusion propulsion in zero gravity.

Shiro blinked, then gave Keith a rueful, sideways grin. “I think that’s my line.”

Keith crossed his arms and raised a pointed eyebrow. “You’re nervous about something. What is it?”

“Well, I _am_ piloting the furthest-ever manned space mission in less than 24 hours,” Shiro deadpanned, but Keith shook his head.

“You’re the best pilot in a generation, and I’ve never seen you get nervous about flying,” he disagreed. “Try again.”

Shiro searched Keith’s face, with that bright, penetrating stare that used to make Keith uncomfortable; now, it was just familiar. Finally, Shiro sighed, and scrubbed a hand through the close-cropped hair at the back of his head. “You’re upset that I’m leaving.” It was a statement, not a question.

Keith froze, feeling like a deer in headlights. “I’m fine,” he replied automatically. The guilt swelled and he bit it back before it could make him do something stupid, like let him make Shiro feel guilty, too.

Though he might have missed the boat on that one already. Dammit.

“Have you made friends with any of your classmates yet?” Shiro asked, and Keith frowned at the apparent non sequitur.

“No. I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“You need a support structure.”

“I’m fine.”

“ _Keith._ ”

Keith fell silent, crossing his arms in a facade of self-protection. Shiro’s face softened, and he turned towards Keith. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then stopped. Instead, he held out his hand, palm up and open in invitation. Keith took it without hesitation, and Shiro pulled him into a loose hug. “Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone,” Shiro murmured in his ear.

“I won’t,” Keith answered, staring at the shuttle over Shiro’s shoulder. _I’ll miss you_ , he didn’t say.

“I’ll miss you,” Shiro said, “but I’ll see you soon.” He stepped back, breaking the hug but not the contact, keeping his hands on Keith’s arms. The touch was familiar, and wanted, and filled Keith with a warmth that made him wonder if this was what family felt like. “You’re gonna do amazing things, Keith.”

*

Five months later, expelled and angry and alone in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, Keith screamed into the desert midnight over two broken promises.

 

_III._

 

“We’re brothers, man,” Hunk said once, when they were first learning to be a team. Keith was familiar with the concept of brothers-in-arms, bonds between soldiers. He figured that’s what Hunk meant. Camaraderie. Probably.

Early on, Hunk had extended an open and persistent invitation for Keith to hang out with him in the kitchen and learn how to cook something that didn’t come freeze-dried. He’d been horrified when Keith mentioned offhand that he’d mostly been eating MREs since his expulsion from the Garrison, and had taken Keith’s palate as a personal challenge. And spending time with Hunk was okay, actually. He was nosy and talkative and didn’t always remember to slow down when he got into using jargon, but it was just… nice.

Spending time with Lance, on the other hand, wasn’t particularly pleasant, and Keith sighed when he walked into the kitchen to find Lance lounging against the counter, chattering a mile a minute at an agreeable Hunk.

“Well-y well, look what the lion dragged in,” Lance quipped, leaning backwards over the countertop to smirk at Keith. “I thought you were—” Lance affected an exaggerated scowl and dropped his voice “'—training with Shiro’ all afternoon.” He finished in his regular voice, tilting his entire head to one side.

“That’s later,” Keith muttered. It came out a little bit too close to Lance’s imitation for comfort, and from the gleam in Lance’s eye and the smothered grin on Hunk’s face, Keith wasn’t the only one who noticed. He figured that best course was to ignore it, so he carried on. “He’s meditating or something. Hunk told me to come here.”

Hunk beamed, as if Keith coming up to the kitchen was special and exciting. “We’re experimenting with spices from the Cnidarre market,” Hunk said. He shook a jar of bright yellow powder. “This one is sorta savoury and sour, and there’s something... I dunno, I can’t quite pin the flavour—”

“I said it’s kinda like sweet and sour pork sauce,” Lance interjected. “But not exactly.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hunk nodded, “So I wanna use it in, like, a meat dish but I gotta lock it down first before I start mixing flavours. Here, eat this.” He shoved a spork at Keith’s face, just short of spearing him, and waited with an expectant expression while Keith licked the spoonful of sauce.

It was flavourful, Keith would give it that. And while he was certain he’d never tasted anything quite like it before, there was something undeniably, forcefully familiar. “Tastes a bit like spicy instant ramen with sauerkraut,” he said. Like the kind of thing he’d eat when he ran out of money for groceries, though those memories weren’t all bad—watching the stars out in the desert, no light pollution to obstruct the view, sitting in the dust with a mug of noodles and wondering if there was life around any of those stars.

...That was ironic.

Keith didn’t remember being lonely, but now the memories felt that way, and he had the uncomfortable thought that he knew why.

It was a strange feeling, to be wanted. He wasn’t sure what to do with it.

Lance made a disgusted sound. “How do you even know what that tastes like?” He screwed up his face. “Please tell me you didn’t actually eat that.”

“It’s not that bad,” Keith protested, bristling.

“That’s just sad. And gross. But hey,” Lance drew the last word out, making it sound three syllables long. He unfolded himself from his slouch against the counter to leer down at Keith and waggle his eyebrows. “Who would’ve guessed that Mr. Super-Pilot would have such terrible taste?”

Keith crossed his arms, refusing to be intimidated. Lance didn’t make any sense—half of the time he acted like they were friends, but then he’d start poking at Keith, teasing and mocking until Keith retaliated. It was confusing on top of being infuriating, because somehow Lance was able to find every one of Keith’s buttons, and hit them with sniper-like precision.

Frankly, it was exhausting to deal with, but the note of challenge was clear in Lance’s voice and Keith could never back down from a challenge. “I don’t have terrible taste.”

“Dude, you totally do. Hunk, back me up here.”

Hunk shrugged, with a look that was both apologetic and amused. “Sorry, man, I’m with Lance on this one. Ramen and sauerkraut, really?”

Keith scowled. He had to convince himself that it wasn’t worth getting in a fight over, but it took a minute of determined focus before he could get there with the feeling of Lance’s eyes on him, surely hoping for and expecting the argument. Finally, Keith exhaled a long breath and said, “Whatever. I don’t need this.”

“Keith—” Hunk started to protest, but Keith just waved over his shoulder as he left. He tried to use the gesture to drop some of the tension in his muscles, but it didn’t work. Not that he was surprised. Good thing he and Shiro had some sparring planned for the afternoon—that would help him work out the frustrated energy.

Pidge was coming up to the kitchen just as Keith was leaving. She slowed when she saw him, eyebrows raised in question.

Keith rolled his eyes. “Lance,” he explained. Pidge grimaced in sympathy.

“You can tell he has a bunch of siblings,” she said, with the knowing solemnity of someone who grew up with a brother. “Sorry he’s so obnoxious.”

“Not your fault,” Keith murmured. He wondered about the correlation between family size and being annoying. As far as Keith could tell, Lance was definitely the most annoying and also had the biggest family, so that tracked. Pidge had her moments. Hunk and Shiro were only children, like Keith, and they were the easiest to get along with, so maybe there was some truth to it.

There were foster siblings in some of the homes Keith lived in as a kid, but he was never particularly close to any of them. It never felt like family. He’d wondered, a lot, what it would be like to have a brother or sister, but he never thought it would be like this.

He did wonder, sometimes, if it felt like Shiro.

“Hey, I have something to show you, meet me in my lab later?” Pidge said, interrupting Keith’s thoughts.

“Why not now?” he asked, trying for a friendly smile. ‘Friendly’ wasn’t exactly a natural expression for him, but he thought he was starting to get the hang of it.

“Um,” Pidge hedged. Keith saw her glance towards the kitchen door, where they could hear Lance and Hunk’s voices, trading off between indistinct conversation and bursts of laughter. Keith’s smile dropped. Right. Pidge had been friends with Hunk and Lance since before Voltron, after all. It made sense that she’d want to spend time with them.

“Oh,” he said awkwardly. “Later, then.”

 

_IV._

 

A knife was a tenuous connection at best to a history that he didn’t know, but for a long time it was the only thing he had. And then they found the Blade of Marmora, and Keith thought that it was finally his chance to learn about who he was and where he came from.

Learning that he was Galra was a rude shock, and really raised more questions than it answered; who his mother might have been, why she had been on Earth, where she was now. He brooded over the vision of a father he hadn’t seen in nearly two decades, wondering the same. And now Shiro was gone, again, lost for the second time in as many years, and Keith fought hard against the feeling of abandonment. Wherever Shiro was, whatever was happening to him, it wasn’t his choice, and that meant that Keith had to get him back, no matter what. As many times as it took. But it felt like nobody else cared that Shiro was gone. They were looking, sure, but it wasn’t a priority. And the new team was having issues—they didn’t listen to Keith like they’d listened to Shiro, and they didn’t fit together as easily as they had before.

Keith wasn’t a leader, and he never wanted to be.

Without Shiro there to act as a bridge, Keith felt the gulf between himself and the rest of the team widening day by day. Frequent arguments over his decisions caused tension and unified the rest of the team against him, and Keith didn’t know how to fix it, especially not when he was _right._

They needed to find Shiro, and Voltron wasn’t doing it.

More and more, Keith turned his attention to the Blades.

Maybe that was the answer. If Keith had never quite fit in with other humans, maybe he’d belong with the Galra.

The Blades were harsh and secretive and uncompromising, and Kolivan was a good mentor. He seemed to understand Keith better than any of his human instructors ever had.

Except Shiro.

“Calm, Keith,” Kolivan reminded, and Keith stopped and took a breath. Antok typed with furious speed at a control console, searching for information about Shiro while a virus wormed its way through the Galra network. Keith didn’t quite understand what it was doing, but when Kolivan had requested his help on a stealth mission and mentioned that there might be a chance to look for information about Shiro—Keith was in. No question.

So Keith and Kolivan stood either side of a door, blades drawn and masks up, protecting Antok as he worked. Keith clenched his fists one at a time, tamping down the urge to shove Antok aside and find Shiro himself. That wasn't his role. He was here for stealth and muscle. He took another breath.

Something beeped quietly behind them. “Done,” Antok announced.

Kolivan nodded. “Back to the ship,” he ordered, voice low. “Max stealth.”

“I—” The need to know what Antok had found burned like a brand.

“ _Quiet_ , Keith,” Kolivan hissed. Antok made a quick gesture behind Kolivan’s back, which Keith couldn’t interpret. He grit his teeth and followed the Blades back to their ship—a tiny, irregularly-shaped scrap of a thing specifically designed to bypass Galra proximity alarms. They drifted away from the Galra cruiser in silence.

As soon as they were out of sensor range, Keith burst. “What did you find?” he demanded, twisting to look at Antok.

Antok deactivated his mask and curled his mouth in a reptilian smile. “Give me a moment to check.” He flicked the data chip out of his glove and fitted it into a miniature holoscreen. Keith fidgeted in his seat as Antok scrolled through the files.

“I am sorry, Keith,” he started, and Keith’s heart dropped. He bent over as much as he could in the confined space, resting his head in his hands as disappointment twisted in his gut like nausea.

A clawed hand settled on his shoulder. “We will find him,” Antok promised. Sympathy sounded strange in his sibilant voice, but Keith appreciated the effort nonetheless. “Shiro is important in the fight against the Empire. And he is your friend. We will find him.”

“We accomplished our mission,” Kolivan reminded them both as he piloted the pod. “Do not let your feelings distract from our goal. With this information, we will be able to strike where the Empire is most vulnerable. The war is finally turning in our favour.” The quiet confidence and pride in his voice helped to calm Keith. The best way to find Shiro was to hit the Galra over and over, tiny cuts in strategic places until the Empire hemorrhaged information and revealed the location of their erstwhile Champion. They had a goal, and the Blades pledged to do whatever it took to win. Keith squared his jaw and straightened his back. He was proud to be part of the Blade of Marmora. It was, finally, where he belonged.

Then the Black Lion found Shiro, and Antok was killed, and Keith started to wonder. But he kept his head high and continued to fight. That was the Galra way.

 

_V._

 

Keith didn’t remember the flight from Ranvieg’s base back to the Blade of Marmora’s central command. He was in turmoil. Krolia—his _mother_ —sat quietly in the back of the fighter, as Keith’s mind raced and his stomach flipped. Since joining the Blades, he’d wondered about his mother, but assumed that she must have been killed in the war against the Galra Empire. A decreased life expectancy was an accepted consequence of membership, and when Keith blinked, he saw the explosion that had killed Antok on the backs of his eyelids.

The luxite blades were attuned specifically to the Blade member that wielded them—of course Kolivan would have known. It had never occurred to Keith to ask Kolivan about his mother, but he realized that Kolivan must have known since the first moment that Keith had activated the blade.

Kolivan knew, and he didn’t say anything. He sent Keith on a solo mission to rescue his mother and he _didn’t say anything._

The anger that welled up at the realization was a relief; anger, at least, was familiar territory. Keith knew what to do with anger. He stared out the window of the fighter and let it simmer.

“Keith,” Krolia started at one point, but Keith’s wordless growl stopped her in her tracks.

“I don’t want to talk to you right now,” he said, anger making his voice sharp. He didn’t turn around to see her reaction, but she didn’t try to speak to him again until they touched down.

“For whatever it’s worth, Keith, I’m sorry,” she said as she stood to exit the fighter.

Keith’s jaw was sore from being so tightly clenched throughout the flight, but after a moment, he managed a jerky nod. “I know. I… I’ll come talk to you. Later.”

There was a pause, then the sensation of a hand on the back of his head, petting his hair. Keith squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw again.

Then she was gone. And Keith was alone in the fighter, listening to his own breathing.

For his entire life, he’d wondered what it would be like to have a family. To have a mom. Now he’d found her, but… she was a stranger.

He locked the doors of the fighter and leaned against the controls with his head buried in his arms. It was overwhelming and confusing, and he didn’t know what to do or how to feel. Every repressed feeling of abandonment and betrayal and misguided affection tried to bubble out, and it was all he could do to keep it contained, to control his emotions like Kolivan was always reminding him to do.

Like Shiro always reminded him to do.

Keith took a gasping breath and pulled up the Castle’s locator beacon. The fighter locked onto the coordinates and for the first time, he turned on autopilot. The ship took him home, and he breathed.

 

_+I._

 

Lance was in the Red Lion’s hangar when Keith flew in, unthinkingly following an old habit from the early days of Voltron. He saw Lance look up at the fighter and frown, but Keith didn’t care. He landed and unlocked the door but stayed in his seat.  He leaned his forearms against the controls and ducked his head down, taking every last moment to pull himself together. He tried to take comfort in the familiar space, in knowing that people he cared about were onboard— _Shiro_ was onboard.  It was still hard.

“What are you doing here?” Lance demanded, face already pulled into an accusatory scowl as he marched up the short ramp into the Galra fighter’s cockpit. “Aren’t you supposed to be—”

“Shut up,” Keith said. “Is everyone here?”

Lance squinted at him. “Uh. Yeah, I think so?”

Keith shoved himself to his feet, brushing past a bemused Lance as he went. “Well, c’mon,” he said, and Lance followed with confused obedience. Keith was glad Lance didn’t ask for an explanation; he wasn’t sure he could give one. His stomach roiled with repressed emotions, and maybe Lance saw through it, but he quietly let Keith have his moment of tightly-controlled mania.

Once, he saw Lance open his mouth, then close it without a word. Keith appreciated it; Lance could be surprisingly perceptive when he wanted to be, he’d realized.   

With deliberate calmness, Keith sent Lance to gather their team in the lounge. Keith himself went to find Shiro. He headed straight for the training deck, and wasn’t surprised to find Shiro working out there, alone.

“Keith,” Shiro said, the surprise clear in his voice. “Hey. What are you doing back already? Did something go wrong with the mission?”

Keith felt his controlled facade cracking. It was infinitely harder to maintain when it was just Shiro.

Except there had never been ‘just Shiro’.

He breathed.

“The mission was fine,” he managed. “I just—” he breathed “—I just needed to come home. For a minute.”

Shiro’s hand was solid and warm on Keith’s shoulder. His eyes were just as sharp as they’d always been, boring through all of Keith’s defenses and tingling over his skin, but after a moment of silence, he simply said, “Okay.”

When they arrived at the lounge, everyone was already waiting, and looked up when they walked in. Lance sat sprawled on one of the sunken sofas, limbs akimbo as he flopped against Hunk’s side.

“What are we doing, exactly?” he whined, watching Keith with affected petulance. Pidge perched on Hunk’s other side with her laptop and mirrored Lance’s expression.

“I was in the middle of something,” she said pointedly. “This better be good.”

Shiro stood at Keith’s side, quiet and supportive, and it felt right, having him there. This all felt _right._  He would never have imagined that Pidge’s snarking or Lance’s childish need for attention would be something he missed, but… when he was gone, he did.

“I want to watch a movie,” Keith said. The response was a predictable litany of confusion, but Keith just waited for a lull and gestured at Pidge. “It’s been a while. Movie night.”

“Are you _serious?"_  Pidge groaned. Matt reached around her to confiscate the laptop, swatting her away when she yelped and tried to reclaim it, and started scrolling through the list of downloads.

Lance pulled himself slightly more upright and pointed his finger. “You’re acting weird,” he announced. “What’s up with you?”

“I think it’s a good idea,” Shiro said, forestalling any potential argument and taking the pressure of a response off of Keith. He grinned. “Unless you’d prefer endurance training?”

“Nope! Nope, no way, movies are great, all about that team bonding time.”

Of course, they never could get anything done without bickering, so it was another ten, noisy minutes before a movie was actually selected, and Hunk had to bounce up to the kitchen to prepare movie snacks. But the movie wasn’t really the point, anyway.

Shiro settled in the seat next to Keith, nudging him with an elbow and bending his head down. Keith obliged the quiet request, leaning to meet him.

“You don’t have to tell me what’s going on,” Shiro said softly, “but I’m always here if you want to talk.”

Too many times before, that hadn’t been true. Shiro hadn’t been there. But right now... Keith licked his lips. “I found my mom. She’s a Blade. Krolia.”

They were close enough that Keith felt Shiro go still, tensing ever so slightly. “Oh. Keith… are you okay? I know how long you’ve wondered about your family.”

Keith shifted, just enough that he could press against Shiro’s side, feel the warmth of two bodies close together. Shiro wrapped his arm around Keith’s shoulders and squeezed. Keith watched as Allura leaned over to murmur something to Coran. Matt stole a crunchy morsel out of Pidge bowl, and Hunk and Lance giggled together at the movie, whispering in each other’s ears.

“Yeah,” he said, “I’m—I’ll be okay. I think… I already found my family.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for OTPlease Volume 1: [Across The Stars](https://fanficzine.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> The title comes from the song [Nothing Out Of Nothing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNnWv9RNmrc)
> 
>  
> 
> [My Twitter](https://twitter.com/paxlegomenon)


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